The Rise and Legacy of Ancient Egypt’s Eleventh Dynasty

The rise of the rulers of Thebes and the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty in ancient Egypt

A ruling house arose in Thebes during the Sixth Dynasty, as happened in most provinces when the central government in Memphis weakened. Some of these rulers carved their tombs into the rocks of the Theban Necropolis on the west bank of the Nile, where a few of them are found among the tombs of other periods.

We do not know much about these rulers during the period following the Sixth Dynasty, but there is no doubt that there was one or more powerful houses in this rich region, and that this house sometimes lived in peace and sometimes fought for supremacy with its neighbors in Armant in the south and Qift in the north, until the days of the Seventh and Eighth Dynasties in Memphis came to an end and the Ninth Dynasty arose in Ihnasiyyah.

But when things changed and power shifted to what we call the tenth dynasty in Ihnasiyyah, the ruling house in Thebes felt that it was no less entitled to the throne than the kings of the north, so they declared their disobedience to Ihnasiyyah and formed a union in the south with their closest neighbors, that is, the eleventh dynasty.

A painted relief depicting pharaoh Mentuhotep II, from his mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari

How did the Eleventh Dynasty contribute to Egypt’s reunification?

In fact, the south began with the start of the tenth dynasty in the north, but it took the southerners more than 80 years to rule the entire country without dispute. King Mentuhotep II became king of all Egypt and unified the country, ushering in a new period in its history.

Who were the Pharaohs of Egypt’s Eleventh Dynasty?

The founder of this dynasty, which was later named the Eleventh Dynasty, was called Intef. We know nothing more about him other than that he was the founder of this dynasty and that the people of Thebes held him in special reverence in the days that followed.

The name of this person also appears in the Ancestral Table erected by Thutmose III in Karnak as the first ruler of the Eleventh Dynasty, but they did not write his name in the royal column; instead, they simply wrote his titles: Ruler and Hereditary Prince Intef the Venerable.

Intef did not claim kingship from the outset but remained independent in his province and did not sever his ties with the kings of the north. On his famous tablet, now in the Cairo Museum, he is referred to as the ruler, hereditary prince, and great lord of the province of Thebes, who won the king's favor as guardian of the southern gate, the high priest Intef.

At some point in the late days of his reign, Intef, also known as Sehertawy, or the one who brought peace to the lands, wrote his name in the royal column and became known to us as Intef I. He surrounded himself with courtiers and was buried in a large tomb with a row of columns carved into the rock in front of it. There was a brick pyramid above his tomb in the northern part of the Thebes necropolis.

Half buried portico at the southwest corner of the saff tomb of Intef I near Thebes.Source

Intef II

He was succeeded by Intef II, known as Wahankh, who ruled for fifty years over the five southern provinces of Upper Egypt. During his reign, expansion towards the north began, and Thebes started attacking the sixth province, Thinis, where the Abydos necropolis is located. However, the rulers of Ihnasiyyah remained powerful, especially since the powerful princes of Asyut were their allies.

Funerary stele of Intef II

What were the major military campaigns of Dynasty XI pharaohs?

Intef II was a contemporary of Khety, prince of Asyut, and in the latter's tomb we read some references to gathering soldiers, preparing archers, and boasting about the fleet, but he does not mention any explicit military events between him and the kings of Thebes. Khety, prince of Asyut, boasts in his tomb that the king (i.e., the king of Ihnasiyyah) appointed him ruler while he was still a child and that he learned to swim with the king's sons.

Intef III

Intef II died after ruling for fifty years, and his son Nakhtnebtepnefer, also known as Intef III, succeeded him to the throne. He was advanced in age and remained in power for only a few years.

Mentuhotep I

During the reign of Mentuhotep I, the kings of Ihnasiyyah wanted to regain what they had lost, so a war broke out between them and Thebes, in which the region of Thinis returned to the northerners. This was during the reign of King Khety IV of Ihnasiyyah. We know nothing else of significance about this king except that he designed a tomb larger than those of all the kings who preceded him, but he died after ruling for eighteen years, leaving his tomb unfinished. He was succeeded by his son Mentuhotep II.

How did Mentuhotep II reunify Egypt?

Mentuhotep II was the strongest and most important king of this ruling house. He not only regained the territory of Abydos, but also pushed northward until Ihnasiyyah itself fell in the ninth year of his reign. He was the first king of Thebes to truly become king of both the south and the north.

For this reason, some historians consider his predecessors from this dynasty and the first nine years of his reign to be contemporary with the Tenth Dynasty, and that the Eleventh Dynasty begins only from this date. However, fairness in research requires us to consider the days of the Eleventh Dynasty from the reign of Intef the Elder, that is, eighty-two years earlier, if the people of Thebes did not forget the memory of the founder of this ruling house and always mentioned him in their monuments and documents and offered him sacrifices.

Mentuhotep exerted great effort to subdue all opposition that stood in his way. He undoubtedly fought in the Delta and fought the Bedouins in the east and west, and he subdued the region south of Elephantine, but he left the ancient princes to rule their provinces and was satisfied with their obedience and tribute.

After the ninth year, when the situation changed and he became the undisputed king of all Egypt, he changed his title to Sematawy, meaning “unifier of the lands,” and his other name became Nebhepetre, which is the name by which he later became known in all his surviving monuments.

Statue of Montuhotep from Deir al-Bahri.Source

What legacy did the Eleventh Dynasty leave in ancient Egypt?

Thebes began a new era in its history, and taxes from all over the country began to flow into its coffers. Mentuhotep spared no effort in beautifying his capital and building various temples there and elsewhere in the country. Since the reign of his predecessors, we have seen that art, which had fallen into decline, gradually regained some of its former beauty.

Among the works that Mentuhotep II began early in his life was the selection of the site for his tomb and temple. The Metropolitan Museum expedition found the bodies of nearly sixty soldiers who may have fallen during the attack on (Ihnasiyyah) and transported their bodies to Thebes to bury them near the king they had fought with. Mentuhotep II's victory over his enemies and the unification of all of Egypt under his rule marked the beginning of a new era.

Egypt gradually recovered from its weakness, and Mentuhotep sent expeditions to the mining areas to work there. He also did not neglect to spread reassurance along the borders.

What architectural achievements mark the reign of Mentuhotep II?

Mentuhotep II chose the area later known as Deir el-Bahari to build his funerary temple and dig his tomb. From the outset, his architects wanted to make his funerary complex befitting his greatness, even though they drew much of its architectural detail from the tombs of his ancestors near Deir el-Bahari.

In the 39th year of his reign, 30 years after his conquest of Ihnasiyyah, he celebrated his 30th anniversary, Heb Sed, and for this occasion, he changed the construction of his mortuary temple and erected some statues representing him in the image of the god Osiris in that temple.

Temple of Mentuhotep at Deir el-Bahri.Source

The tomb of Mentuhotep II and his mortuary temple

In the Deir el-Bahari area, there are ruins of the temple of the Eleventh Dynasty to the south of the temple of Hatshepsut. In fact, the architects of the Eighteenth Dynasty were influenced by their predecessors in the early Middle Kingdom, not only in their choice of location, but also in their architecture and construction based on a terraced system.

And if the ruins of the New Kingdom temple are now more important because of the abundance of its buildings and important inscriptions, anyone who examines both temples will undoubtedly realize that when it was complete, the temple of Mentuhotep II was more magnificent and beautiful than that of Hatshepsut.

Mentuhotep II's architects built his temple on a hill, in front of which they erected rows of columns, and on top of that hill stood a pyramid also surrounded by columns. A long road between walls connected the lower hall of that temple to another temple on the edge of the valley, and on both sides of the connecting road, they erected statues of King Mentuhotep II representing him in the image of the god Osiris.

Excavations in this temple revealed important facts about its construction, as it was proven that the construction project had changed several times, some during the work and others after its completion, by demolishing some parts and rebuilding them on a different system.

Before building anything, the engineers leveled the ground and dug twelve holes in the center of the temple, placing cone-shaped loaves of bread in each one. Then they dug a square hole at each corner of that spacious platform and placed various offerings in them. They placed four clay molds on top of those offerings, and in three of them they placed small molds, one made of wood, the second of stone, and the third of metal, which were the materials used in the construction of the temple along with mud bricks. They inscribed the king's name and titles on them.

As for the offerings, they were placed in clay pots, which also contained pieces of meat, a bull's head and thigh, some pieces of ribs, many cone-shaped and round loaves of bread, some barley grains and fruit, especially figs and grapes. They also placed small symbolic vessels containing beer and wine among them, sealing their openings with clay.

The contents of such pits are called foundation deposits, and we often find them in the corners of temples and under some of their thresholds or pillars. Archaeologists sometimes find many amulets, jewelry, and other items in them, bearing the name of the king who built the temple.

Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut in the front, Mortuary Temple of Mentuhotep II in the background

What was lifelike in the royal court of Dynasty XI?

This building was not dedicated to Mentuhotep II alone but also included a large number of tombs of his family, especially his wives and concubines.

There are more than thirty of them, the most important of which are the tombs of his mother and his wives, the queens, whose beautiful coffins were found there, some of which are in the Cairo Museum and others in New York, all made of limestone and bearing beautiful inscriptions.

These wives were buried under the floor of the temple, and each of them had a small shrine at the end of the hall with her name and some of her titles on it. Some of the jewelry they wore during their lifetime was also found in their tombs. The tombs were not limited to the king's wives, but also included some of his concubines and even Nubian dancers.

Successors of Mentuhotep II

Mentuhotep II ruled after seizing Ihnasiyyah. For many years, he did everything in his power to reform Egypt and make it one country again, as it had been before, and he achieved much of what he wanted.

He was succeeded by his son Mentuhotep III, named Sankhkare, who followed his father's policy of rebuilding the country and establishing temples in the Delta and Upper Egypt. The arts progressed greatly during his reign, especially the art of engraving, and he paid considerable attention to quarries and mines, about which we know a great deal from their inscriptions.

For example, in the eighth year of his reign, he sent a campaign under the command of his house manager, Henenu, who was accompanied by three thousand men. They went via Wadi Hammamat to the Red Sea coast, where Henenu gathered them. Henenu, from the youth of Middle Egypt and Upper Egypt from Ihnasiyyah to the mountains, prepared the necessary equipment for them and allocated each man a measure of water and twenty small loaves of bread per day.

For this mission, he dug water cisterns and twenty wells along the way. When they reached the coast, they built ships to sail to the Land of Punt, then returned with everything they found in the ports of that country. On their return, they passed through Wadi Hammamat again, and Henenu and his men brought back some granite stones for temple statues.

Mentuhotep III wanted to build a tomb and temple similar to those built by his father, so he chose a valley in the western mountain of Thebes, no more than 800 meters southwest of Deir el-Bahari. They began by leveling the site and preparing the road, then started digging the tomb, but the work did not progress beyond that stage.

Although the work did not begin in earnest, some traces of this king were found in the foundation deposits that were in pits under the temple. Many of his men built their tombs near that place, the most important of which was the tomb of Meketre, who was one of the most important men in his government and had previously been a senior official during his father's reign. The tomb of Intef, who took over some of his father Meketre's duties after his death, was also found.

Mentuhotep III's reign did not exceed twelve years, and his death was followed by a period of instability that lasted for about five years, during which several people ruled. However, after these five turbulent years, we see King Mentuhotep IV, also known as Nebtawyre, on the throne. All we know about him is that he ruled for no more than two years, during which he took a keen interest in sending expeditions to various quarries to cut stones to obtain amethyst. Despite the short period this king spent on the throne, important events took place during his reign, such as his expeditions to the desert.

The most important event associated with this king's reign was when his minister, Amenemhat, led 10,000 people from the southern and northern provinces on a campaign to Wadi Hammamat to quarry the stone needed for his sarcophagus and to build temples in the south. They accomplished their mission and left several inscriptions in the valley recording their various activities.

That expedition to Wadi Hammamat was the last thing we know about the Eleventh Dynasty and the reign of that royal house, which remained in power for about 143 years, as the picture suddenly changes and we see many successive events, the most important of which are the accession of a new king to the throne, the establishment of a new ruling dynasty, and the transfer of the capital to the north.

Who was Amenemhat, and how did Dynasty XI end?

We see that the person who carried out this coup, if it is permissible to use such an expression, is called Amenemhat. Is he the minister who went to Wadi Hammamat? It is almost certain that he is the same person.

We can also almost certainly say that such a large number of soldiers was not needed to bring stones, as a few hundred men would have sufficed, or at most three thousand men, as was the case during the reign of the king who preceded him. a number never heard of before. Perhaps Minister Amenemhat gathered these ten thousand soldiers in preparation for another task, which was to seize the throne for himself and put an end to the instability that had been spreading in the country since the death of Mentuhotep III, seven years earlier.

References

Clayton, Peter A. Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson, 2006.
Grimal, Nicolas. A History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.
Shaw, Ian, ed. The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Wilkinson, Toby A. H. The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt. London: Bloomsbury, 2010.
Dodson, Aidan, and Dyan Hilton. The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.
Bard, Kathryn A. An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
Kemp, Barry J. Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2006.
Darnell, John Coleman. The Ancient Egyptian State: The Origins of Egyptian Culture (c. 8000–2000 BC). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Tyldesley, Joyce. Hatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh. London: Viking, 1996.
Redford, Donald B. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.